COLLECTIVE IRRESPONSIBILITY
COUNTDOWN TO DISASTER

THE CUSTODIANS AND REGULATORS OF THE environment have abetted and aided and connived and colluded with government and the corporate sector to undermine the environment and endanger the lives of citizens. AGNELO RODRIGUES probes into the 'ultra safe' naphtha and petroleum pipeline meant to be buried two-and-a-half metres below the surface which bobbed up and is threatening to turn Baina and Vasco into a towering inferno. JONQUIL SUDHIR exposes how the government fraudulently obtained environmental clearances for IFFI related projects falling in the Coastal Regulation Zone. CLAUDE ALVARES laments the unethical conduct of the premier scientific and research body, the National Institute of Oceanography.

The pipeline was built under the Supervision of Tata AIG consultants and the NIO, two of the prestigious internationally reputed institutions in the country. Incredibly, the Managing Director of Zuari Indian Oil-tanking Limited (ZIOL), E P Esteves, claims that the extent of buoyancy had not been properly estimated. In a clumsy fire fighting operation, the pipeline has been covered with plastic sheets and sand bags which blow off with every gust of wind. The exposed pipeline, as much as the IFFI-related works, are a sordid saga of how institutions such as the Pollution Board, GCZMA and the NIO have colluded with government and the corporate sector to undermine the environment that they are mandated to protect.

Cover Story. . .(Goan Observer, July 31-August 6, 2004.)

In its submissions before the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority, the Zuari Indian Oiltanking Limited had assured that the pipeline would never be exposed under any circumstances. How did the pipeline come to be exposed? AGNELO RODRIGUES investigates.

THE SCEPTRE of a mini Bhopal hovers over the port town of Vasco with the Zuari Indian Oiltanking Limited (ZIOL) company’s multi-product underground petroleum pipeline bobbing up to the surface and standing exposed over 150 metres of the Baina beach. Fuelling fears that the 14-km pipeline set up to transport petroleum products from the docks to the storage tanks in Sancoale may turn into a pipeline of disaster.

The ZIOL pipeline was intended to replace the 30-year old pipeline set up by Zuari Industries to transport naphtha from its storage facility at the Mormugoa port to its factory in Zuarinagar. The old pipeline had begun to leak with alarming frequency. And the new pipeline was touted as fail-safe and absolutely secure. However the claims that the new hi-tech 20-inch pipeline would eliminate all environmental pollution risks has been cruelly belied.

The ZIOL pipeline, which was required to remain buried 2.5 metres below the sand and firmly grouted, bobbed up to the surface on 15 th June 2004 and has been lying exposed to the fury of the waves and the heavy rains ever since. More shockingly, as admitted by the Managing Director of ZIOL E P Esteves, the exposed pipeline has been used five times for the transportation of naphtha, diesel and motor spirits. Exposing the residents of the thickly populated Ambedkar Nagar slums, just a few metres away from the pipeline, to grave risk.

When the Goan Observer visited the site we found that the pipeline not only exposed but in a very vulnerable condition. The flimsy polyethylene covering used had got blown off at several places. A close inspection of the pipeline revealed that the outer coating had worn off too leaving the galvanised pipe line exposed. Though company officials seek to underplay the risk of a leak or seepage it does not require experts to draw attention to the grave risk that the exposed pipeline poses not only to the residents of the adjacent slums but to the entire port town of Vasco.

The risk is not only because of the exposure of the pipeline to the elements. Naphtha and other petroleum products are pumped at very high speeds through the pipeline. In fact the company has been boasting that an entire shipload of naphtha can be transferred within eight hours. The pressure at which petroleum products are pumped also has to be very high because of the steep elevation through which the pipe has to traverse uphill to the storage facility at Sancoale. Moreover naphtha is a very corrosive chemical and even presuming that the insides of the pipeline has been coating there will still be a high risk of corrosion. It was obvious to us that the exposure of the pipeline is the result of criminal negligence on the part of the company.

When Goan Observer spoke to various experts the unanimous verdict was that the displacement of the pipe has occurred because it had not been grouted. While initially denying that the consultants Tata AIG Risk Management Services Ltd, had recommended grouting, subsequently company officials conceding grudgingly that consultants had suggested that grouting ought to be done as a measure of abundant precaution. It is obvious that the company in its anxiety to cut costs and its callous disregard for public safety did not heed the advice of the consultants. The company obviously did not feel that it should make the pipeline “totally safe” and should take every possible precaution to prevent even a remote chance of the pipeline shifting away from its moorings and be exposed with all its horrifying consequences.

No one has any plausible or reasonable explanation as to how the pipeline rose to the surface. All the concerned authorities and officials of the company are engaged in passing the buck. The Managing Director Esteves insists that the company was not guilty and that it should not be blamed for acts of God. Esteves insists that the line was laid 2.5 metres below the ground as recommended by the consultants Tata AIG Risk Management Services Limited which had conducted the Environment Impact Assessment and Risk Analysis studies.

DR N P S Varde, Director, Science Technology and Environment and Member Secretary of the Goa Coastal Zone Management Authority (GCZMA) who had issued the clearance to the pipeline project has accused the ZIOL of gross negligence. In his order, dated 23/07/04 to the Managing Director, E P Esteves, Dr Varde has warned of “fire hazard and other toxic effects leading to loss of lives, adverse health effects and loss of property/ecological assets.” Invoking the provisions of Section 5 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986, he ordered the company to stop the “operation/use” of the said pipelinewithin 24 hours of the receipt of the directions. The order also asked for an “action taken report” within seven days failing which action would be taken inter alia under section 15 of the Environment (Protection) Act, 1986.” (See Box “GCZMA Directives”).

Severely reprimanding ZIOL, the order stated “whereas the GCZMA has taken a very serious note of the precarious and dangerous present condition of the pipeline and have taken a strict exception to the fact that the ZIOL have neither taken any steps to remedy the situation as per the written assurance nor have they notified the concerned authorities about the present precarious of the state of the pipeline. The GCZMA is convinced that its present state the said pipeline not only violates the conditions of the GCZMA said clearance but its continued operation poses a grave danger to the environment as well as human lives.” ZIOL has not even been given the option of filing objections, and has been summarily ordered to shut down operations till the necessary safeguards are put in place.

Ironically the first victim of the closure of the pipeline has been Zuari Industries Limited (ZIL) which is a co- promoter. Consequent on the order shutting down the operation of the pipeline, ZIL which has a shipload of naphtha berthed at the harbour has been desperately lobbying with the Chief Minister and the various government authorities to make a one-time exception and permit it to use the exposed pipeline to transfer the naphtha to its storage tanks within Zuarinagar. Zuari Industries Limited (ZIL), in its representation, has been claiming that it would have to stop production if it could not access the naphtha at the port.

Talking to Goan Observer, the Executive President of ZIL, Roman Madhok, claimed that the exposed pipeline was absolutely safe and there was no risk that it would spring a leak because of corrosion or fury of the elements. Madhok however conceded the fact that the pipeline lay exposed made it vulnerable to damage by vandals and miscreants. Madhok is reported to have assured the government that remedial measures will be taken under supervision of international experts.

It is clear that nobody either in the company or in the government agencies which granted approval for the pipeline are willing to assume responsibility for the exposure of the pipeline which is seen as a ticking time-bomb and could lead to disastrous consequences. While the MD of ZIOL attributes the disaster to vagaries of nature, Dr Varde insists that it is the result of negligence of the company in implementing the project to the specifications laid down by the consultants. Dr Varde points out that studies by NIO show that the Baina beach area has not witnessed any significant erosion. So much so if the pipeline had been laid 2.5 m below the surface, it would have been safe and would not have got exposed.

However, as Dr Claude Alvares points out in his article, the GCZMA authority had rejected the alignment of the pipeline under the beach and had only approved it reluctantly on the assurances of NIO and Tata AIG that there would be no adverse environmental consequences. Though Dr Varde was a party to the approval, he is now shifting the blame to the consulting agencies.

By implication Dr Varde has held the NIO and Tata AIG guilty for the potential disaster. In his order to the ZIOL Dr Varde has pointed out that both the environmental impact report as well as the specific clarifications given by ZIOL and the expert consultants had stated that the pipeline would be buried 2.5 mts below the ground. Dr. Varde, in his order, has asked the NIO “to examine the present case of the unforeseen erosion of the Baina beach and the dangerous surfacing of the buried pipeline vis-à-vis the reports prepared by NIO is August 1999 and June 2001.The implication being that either the NIO has miscalculated the extent of erosion and its effect on the pipeline or had failed to supervise the implementation of the project to ensure that the company complied with the stipulations as it was mandated to do.

Sources in the NIO however strongly deny that erosion could have led to the bobbing up of the pipeline to the surface and its exposure to the elements. NIO claims that the seasonal erosion at Baina is less than 0.5 percent and there is no way that erosion alone could have led to the pipeline bouncing up to the surface if it had actually been placed 2.5 metres deep as had been stipulated.

Even as the blame game continues, all believe that the buck stops with the Managing Director of ZIOL.Goan Observer understands that even Indian Oil, which is Zuari’s partner in the joint venture, has demanded the sacking of E.P. Esteves, the MD of the Company. Curiously, while other oil companies have agreed to use the pipeline for transporting their petroleum products, Indian Oil has yet to sign a contract. Indian Oil and other oil company officials have been complaining that the handling charges are exorbitant. The company apparently believes that it can get away with it because it will be in an monopolistic position if the present oil storage facilities are shifted out of Vasco as desired by the Chief minister Manohar Parrikar himself. But the high handling charges will ultimately affect you and me the consumer of petroleum products. Oil companies are already under pressure to subsidise petrol and diesel by absorbing part of the cost of the ever increasing cost of crude in the international market. If they are forced to pay exorbitant handling charges they are bound to pass it on to the consumer which will make petroleum products dearer to the Goans.

There is an even greater fear that haunts or should haunt Goans. With the decommissioning of the old pipeline the only means of transferring petroleum products including naphtha from the port to the oil storage facilities in Vasco will be through the new ZIOL pipeline. If the freeze on the operations of the ZIOL pipeline continues it could lead to s severe shortage of petroleum products in the state. ZIL the largest manufacturer of naphtha based fertilisers is also likely to be crippled as it relies exclusively on the ZIOL pipeline. This in turn will have a serious impact not only on the fertiliser production in the peak season but will deprive several hundred of contract labourers of employment.

Questions are now belatedly being raised on the legitimacy of the GCZMA and other clearances granted to the project. It is mandatory that projects which involve a cost of more than Rs. 20 crores have to be referred to the Ministry for Environment and cannot be cleared by the regional GCZMA. In the case of ZIOL, the Rs. 50 crore project was not referred to the Centre at all and was cleared by the local GCZMA. The project was cleared despite strong reservations expressed by several members and only on the assurance that it would not pose any environmental hazard.

The 20-inch pipeline continues to stand exposed along a 150 metre stretch of the Baina beach posing a major threat to the lives and property of the residents of the slums adjacent to the pipeline. The company has failed to put into place any safeguards beyond cosmetic attempts like covering the pipeline with plastic sheets and stacking sandbags on the sides.

It is clear that there has been bungling at all levels from the stage of granting approvals to the implementation of the project. What is to be seen is if the government will stand firm on its order stopping the operation of the pipeline or will succumb to pressure from the company and the most affected user Zuari Industries.

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